Ask An Expert: How To Match Your Cheek and Lip Color

An issue came up during one of our beauty break chats the other day. Lauren Sherman and I were wondering why peachy Nars Orgasm blush with a Nars Heatwave lip looked so great on her BUT when she switch to a rose-colored Chanel blush called "Rose Petale," the Nars Heatwave suddenly looked way too pink. (It’s actually an orange-y red.) Admittedly, I was stumped and thought to ask celebrity makeup artist Susan Posnick to weigh in. She’s painted some pretty important faces, like Cindy Crawford, Amber Valletta, Rene Russo and Diane Lane. She’s also the brains behind her very own complete cosmetic line of multi-purpose face, lip and eye products.

Susan had some very helpful advice. "It’s a good rule of thumb to keep your lips and cheeks in the same color family," she says. "Use pink cheek color with pink, berry, blue-reds, and pink-beige nude lips. With yellow based cheek color, wear coral, burnished copper, orange-red and golden-beige nude lips. Whether you stay natural or go with bright lips into fall, think of plums (blue-red) and burgundies (yellow-red) on the cheeks. To go with those bright lips, try a flushed cheek color or skip the cheek color all together and use a touch of bronzer and shimmer to simply add warmth and a glow."